American voters are stuck with the rematch that few of them (us) wanted
Lesson summary
Hi there everyone, it’s Jeff and I am sorry to announce that the 2024 American presidential election is going to be a rematch between Donald J. Trump and Joseph R. Biden. This is not what most people wanted. But this is what we got.
That will be the story we talk about on today’s Plain English. As you know, this is the best podcast for you to upgrade your skills in English. We pick a topic in the news—or just something interesting to me—and we talk about it together in English. The speed of the audio is just right for you.
And then in the second half of the lesson, we talk about an English expression. Not just any English expression—we always pick one that came from the main story. That’s how you know the expressions you learn here are authentic: because I only teach you the expressions that I personally use.
You’ll never hear me teach you “it’s raining cats and dogs” and you’ll never hear me teach you “I’m over the moon” because I don’t use expressions like that. I only teach you the ones you should be using in daily life.
This is lesson 662 of Plain English and today’s expression is “pass the torch.” JR, the producer, has uploaded the full lesson content to PlainEnglish.com/662. That’s where you find the full transcript and a bunch of other goodies. PlainEnglish.com/662.
Let’s get started.
2020 redux: It’s Biden vs. Trump again
Three years ago, the prospect of a rematch election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden seemed remote, if not impossible.
Shortly after losing the 2020 election, but before relinquishing power, Trump had pressured state election officials to “find” enough votes for him to win. When that didn’t work, he pressured his vice president to declare him the winner during the official vote certification. And when that didn’t work, he whipped a mob into a frenzy. The mob then stormed the Capitol building; by the end of the day, 174 police officers had been injured, and one was dead.
Trump, having incited the mob, later appeared paralyzed and indecisive when the protest got out of control. When Trump finally left office, a few weeks later, it seemed his career in politics was over.
Biden, meanwhile, took office at age 78. He had been a compromise candidate from the start. His main message was: “I can beat Trump and things will get back to normal.” Many people assumed he would serve for only one term; that his would be a caretaker presidency; that he would be a bridge to a new generation of Democrats.
But that isn’t what happened. Biden never showed any sign of wanting to pass the torch . And he announced his campaign for re-election in April last year.
A sitting president doesn’t automatically get to run for re-election; he has to win the party’s nomination first. But it’s rare for anyone to challenge a sitting president in the primary elections. This year, one relatively unknown congressman did challenge Biden, but he didn’t win many votes and he quickly dropped out. The talented, younger Democrats—the state governors, the cabinet secretaries—none of them challenged Biden.
On the Republican side, Trump has spent the years since his election loss denying that he lost at all. He called the election rigged and blamed a range of local, state, and federal officials for it. He found a receptive audience for that message: two-thirds of Republican voters believe the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, and that Biden was not the true winner.
Donald Trump remains a magnetic campaigner and very, very popular politician. Even people who don’t love him will vote for him out of economic self-interest: many voters look back at Trump’s term and they remember a time of prosperity and low inflation.
Twelve candidates challenged Trump in the Republican primary election. Of them, perhaps three or four had any chance to win. But Trump knocked them down one by one. None of them found a way to criticize Trump without alienating his many, many fierce supporters.
So that is how we got here. But this is not the choice many voters wanted. More than 50 percent of voters say they didn’t want Trump to run again; more than 50 percent of voters say they didn’t want Biden to run again.
This will be a strange election. It is the first time since 1912 that a former president is running for office, having once been defeated. Both candidates have the advantages of incumbency: they both have strong name recognition and a record of accomplishments to run on.
Both candidates also have high negative ratings. Overwhelming majorities say Biden is too old to serve a second term. Depending on the poll, about half of voters say they could never vote for Trump, no matter what. Almost a fifth of Americans said they wouldn’t vote at all if the nominees were Trump and Biden again.
That is what they say, anyway. But voters are only now starting to wake up to the fact that this rematch is happening—this is not a nightmare. They are going to have to either choose, or live with the consequences of not voting.
Jeff’s take
I will be voting. But I am in the majority that didn’t want this rematch. It has now been twelve years since I really liked a presidential candidate. It’s depressing. But it hasn’t always been this way. In 2004, I volunteered for a campaign. I made phone calls, I licked envelopes, I passed out flyers, I knocked on doors, I carried a clipboard. I did all the things you imagine campaign volunteers doing—I went to an election night party!
I can’t fathom doing something like that today. I’ll do my part and I’ll make a choice and I’ll vote. But neither side could motivate me to volunteer. Not this year.
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